]]>We like to experiment here at Keg Outlet and given our recent kombucha kick, we thought it was about time to harvest and grow our own scoby from a store bought bottle of kombucha.

We took on a similar project a few years back when we were able to get our hands on a rare(ish) can of beer from Vermont – Heady Topper from The Alchemist. Heady Topper is arguably the beer that made Hazy IPAs what they are today, and their proprietary “Conan” yeast strain was highly sought after, so given the fact that their beer was unfiltered, we decided to try to harvest it when we were able to get our hands on a couple of cans – you can read that full post here if you’re interested: Harvesting Heady: Culturing the Conan Yeast from the Alchemist’s Heady Topper.

Anyways, back to the kombucha side of things. GTs Kombucha was the first kombucha I had ever tried, so you could say that I developed a taste and liking for it over the years.

I was at Costco the other day and saw a case of GTs Gingerade Kombucha, so I decided to purchase it. Upon getting home and cracking a bottle, I saw plenty of sediment (yeast/bacteria/etc) at the bottom of the bottle, so I decided I’d try to brew a small 32oz batch of kombucha tea to see if I could grow a new scoby from this bottle of GTs.

All of my previous batches of kombucha have been 1 (or more) gallons, so I had to do a little bit of math to get my recipe down to scale. This would be a 32oz batch and my recipe and measurements were as follows:

3 grams of black/green tea blend

1/4 cup of organic cane sugar

32 oz of water

The steps I took to brew the tea in an attempt to harvest a scoby from a bottle of GTs Kombucha.

Brought 24oz of water to a boil. I left out 8oz of water so that I could add ice to cool this after steeping the tea.

Removed from heat.

Added 3 grams of black/green tea blend and steeped for 20 minutes.

Removed tea.

Added 1/4 cup of organic cane sugar. Stirred until dissolved.

Added ice cubes to cool the tea.

Poured into a 32oz mason jar.

Poured the remainder of my GTs Kombucha bottle into the mason jar.

Covered with a breathable cloth and placed in away from light.

I should note that I plan on leaving this to sit for about 2 weeks and may add some updates between now and then.

Harvested Scoby Growth Updates

Over the course of the next couple weeks, I’ll try to take pictures and update as regularly as possible (which I can’t guarantee will happen).

Update 1 / 2 days in at about 78ºF

Two days in and there is some visible activity in the mason jar. There is a layer forming on top, and there is a bit of yeast on the bottom of the jar. Funny that this really reminds me of fermenting beer. The yeast at the bottom of the jar seems to be kicking off quite a bit of CO2 and the white layer seen on the surface seems to be more small CO2 bubbles than it seems to be any real scoby growth. We’ll wait and see what happens over the next few days.

]]>This custom kegerator build was submitted by Thomas Dial. He repurposed some old barn beams and used some black iron hardware to give the system an industrial look and feel.

The wood on the top is old resourced poplar from old barn beams. I wanted to use something that looked substantial and would add to the industrial feel. I used a grinder on all the edges and then stained-varnished. I brought them together with a Kreg Tool, using recessed Kreg screws underneath.

The black pipe was sourced from an online hardware store, which was much cheaper than my local Lowes, and had all of the pieces that I needed.

I also ran copper pipe up to the tee in the tower in order to keep the beer cold- the fittings were just hand tightened to allow for removal/repair if necessary.

My CO2 tank and temp controller sit behind the fridge in the same corner. The drip tray was custom made by a local sheet metal shop from stainless. There are long bolts which secure the tower through the pipe flange which run down through the wood and through an aluminum plate on the inside of the fridge.

]]>I made this kegerator to work with several configurations. I took out the inside of the door and replaced the door shelves with a flat panel. I have it set up for three full size kegs. One inside the kegerator and two can be set up behind in an ice bucket with CO2 and beer lines passing through pre-drilled holes in the side of the kegerator. I have two air tanks so I can use CO2 or CO2/Nitrogen mix for Guinness. I can keep the gas inside or outside mounted on the top with lines passing through the side. Inside I can easily fit one gas tank, one full size and a slim or three ponys. I have the parts for a thermostat but have not yet installed it.

My Recipe for this 5 Gallon Kombucha Batch

Note that I’ve only brewed 3 batches of kombucha prior to this one, so to calculate the requirements for this batch, I simply scaled up my prior batches. At the time of brewing, I didn’t factor in any other variables. Feel free to copy this receipe, but I cannot guarantee results.

Why brew hot tea in a cold brew system?

Firstly, the fact that the cold brew system is made of stainless steel gives it a lot of versatility. Heat it, chill it, fill it with ice, it really doesn’t matter.

Secondly, with this batch I used loose leaf tea for the brew, where in my previous batches I had used multiple tea sachets, so there was no straining or separating that had to be done. So this time, I had to find a way to strain out all of the used tea leaves and the filter plate in the cold brew system provided me a way to do that.

Finally, my plan was to get about 5.5 gallons into the fermenter and the cold brew system has a max capacity of 5.5 gallons. Though I didn’t fill it all of the way, I like that I had the option to do a full brew – brewing the kombucha without having to dilute it with water after brewing. I’ll get into my thoughts on doing a full brew vs. brewing and diluting in a future post.

My 5 Gallon Kombucha Brew Process

I started this brew with the intent of getting 5.5 gallons into my fermenter, so I began by adding 4.5 gallons of water into my cold brew system. I left about 1/2 gallon to be used to dissolve sugar and room for about 1/2 gallon of ice to help cool the brew down.

After filling my kettle up with 4.5 gallons, I remembered how long it takes to chill 5, 10 and 15 gallons of wort when brewing beer. I also remembered that I did not have my wort chiller or any other method to chill the brewed booch other than by adding ice and water.

With this in mind, I dialed my kettle volume back to 3.5 gallons. This would allow me to add up to 2 gallons of ice and water and (hopefully) cool the brew down fairly quickly before adding the scoby.

Once I had the desired amount of water in the system, I started heating it up. I had concerns about bringing the water to boiling with the cold brew systems filter plate in place. I was unsure if the bubbles created by boiling would be able to escape through the fine 35 micron mesh, but those concerns were alleviated.

Once the water reached boiling temp, I turned off the heat and added my black & green loose leaf tea blend to the system. One thing that I quickly noticed is that the tea added far more color when brewed loosely. I didn’t measure TDS, but I’m curious if less tea could be used when brewing in this method vs. using tea bags/sachets.

Heating the Brew System

Measuring out Loose Leaf Tea

Shot of Tea

Tea Steeping the the Cold Brew System

While the tea steeped, I added 1/2 gallon of water to a small saucepan and dissolved 5.5 cups of organic cane sugar. My reason for doing this separately was because I was unsure how much sugar would get caught in/on the tea leaves and left behind when the kettle was emptied. So instead of adding the sugar to the kettle, I dissolved it separately.

When my tea had steeped for the required 20 minutes, I positioned my fermenting vessel beneath the brew system, attached the silicone hose to the outlet and simply opened the ball valve to start emptying the brewer into the fermenter.

As the tea flowed into the fermenter, I poured in the sugar water that was brewed separately. This allowed the tea and sugar water to be combined and mix.

Fermenter Waiting for Tea

Post Transfer

Loose Leaf Tea Filtered Out

At this point, I had about 4 gallons in my fermenter after the tea and sugar water had been combined. This gave me 1.5 gallons worth of space to add ice and cold water which was desperately needed as the temperature was currently at about 180ºF.

So I added ice and water. The ice immediately melted. I added more ice. The temperature was still outrageous. I didn’t have a thermometer available, so I didn’t get an actual reading, but if I had to guess, it only got down to about 140º-150ºF.

What were my options now? Basically just wait it out. I wasn’t about to clear out my entire fridge to put my fermenter in to help chill it. I didn’t have a wort chiller available, so I just covered it and waited. I didn’t want to risk adding my scoby while the temperature was so high as that could kill the active cultures.

I had brewed this about noon and when I check it around 9pm, the temperature was still in the upper 90s, so the wife and I watched a movie and my intention was to add the scoby when the movie was over. Whoops! Went straight to bed after the movie. Oh well… woke up the next day and added the scoby.

Is there any benefit (or detriment) to adding the scoby more (or less) quickly after the brew is complete? When brewing beer, the idea is to chill the wort as quickly as possible prior to adding the yeast, so I’m curious if there are any similarities to that when brewing kombucha.

Recap and Updates of the Brew and Fermentation Process

I brewed this on a Monday (Labor Day), but didn’t add the scoby until Tuesday. In all of my previous brews, it took about 2-3 days for the brew to show visible signs of a new scoby layer forming on the surface, so with this brew, I was hoping to see some signs of scoby formation by Thursday/Friday. I wasn’t sure if the it would take more or less time due to the size of this batch, so we’ll just wait and see.

Update / Friday – 3 days into fermentation

I pulled the cover off to check on progress on Friday, and to my surprise, there was no progress yet. Still just a batch of tea. No sight of the large scoby that I had added – in my prior experience, these usually surface after a day or two.

There was one small white spot on the surface and I couldn’t quite tell if it was a scoby forming or possibly a small spot of mold, so I scooped it out with a clean spoon. Seeing this was disappointing, but I decided to let it keep going to see what would happen.

The fermenter was staying a consistent 70-72ºF where it was sitting in my kitchen, so I decided to relocate it out into my garage where it’d be a little bit warmer – upper 70s.

Update / Sunday – 5 days into fermentation

Fermentation temperature rose a bit while in my garage – sticking around 78ºF. I think this was a good thing. I once again peaked into the fermenter and noticed a couple things:

The scoby had risen to the surface. Or partially risen. My scoby was about 13 inches in diameter and in order to fit it into a tupperware that I was holding it in, I had to fold it in quarters – it seemed to have kept this shape.

There were more areas around the surface that looked like the gelatinous layer that the scoby creates.

At this point, things are starting to look better, but I’m starting to wonder how long I might have to let this batch ferment.

If you read my first kombucha post, Choosing to Brew Kombucha with the Intention of Kegging, you likely know that I’ve put of brewing my first batch of kombucha for years. As I think about it, there really is no good reason why I’ve put it off so long, other than…. well…. laziness.

That time had come to an end. I ordered the necessary equipment and ingredients and I was ready to brew my first batch of kombucha and in reading through the instructions that came with my Kombucha Brooklyn starter kit, it seemed like a very simple process.

Brewing Kombucha – The Process

I got the process started by bringing water to a boil in a large pot. The amount of water being boiled was a bit less than half of the total batch size. This water would be used to steep the tea and dissolve the evaporated cane sugar (I still am not quite sure the difference between cane sugar and evaporate cane sugar). Once boiling, I turned off the heat and added 2 tea bags (which I later learned was not enough). The tea bags were left to rest for 20 minutes while I occasionally stirred.

After 20 minutes, I removed the tea bags (or sachets) and stirred in 2 cups of evaporated cane sugar. Sugar is added at 1 cup per gallon, since I was doing a 2 gallon batch, 2 cups were added.

Note that we’re not making sweet tea. The sugar is added for the SCOBY. Without sugar, the bacteria and yeast of the SCOBY cannot grow and there will be no fermentation. Without fermentation, we can’t make kombucha. So if you’re looking at this recipe thinking, “2 cups of sugar? That’s a ton!”, don’t worry, a majority of that sugar will be consumed by the culture of bacteria and yeast.

Once the sugar was dissolved, I added some ice cubes to help further cool the tea before adding it to the fermentation crock. I had pre-added about 1 gallon over water to the fermentation crock prior to adding the tea. After the tea was added, I topped off the crock with a bit more water, covered it with the breathable cloth and set it aside to let it do its thing.

Brewing Kombucha – Fermentation

This is the most boring part, but if you’ve brewed beer before, you’re very familiar with the fermentation phase. With beer, you add yeast for fermentation, with kombucha, you add a SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast). The SCOBY consumes the sugar that was added during the brew process and is the “magic” behind kombucha (fermented tea).

Fermentation times can vary, but most of the information I found suggested that the kombucha be left to rest at room temperature (preferably above 70F) for about 10-14 days. Being the first time I brewed it, I planned on going on the high side of that range, but as life happened, I ended up leaving my kombucha to sit and ferment for closer to 25 days. From what I read, I expected the final product to taste like vinegar, however, it still had a mildy sweet taste, but it did smell like vinegar. I attribute the preservation of the sweet taste and flavor to the fact that my kitchens ambient temperature over the course of the brew was pretty consistently in the upper 60s (great for fermenting beer!).

I have to admit that after about 3 or 4 days, I pulled the cloth off of my fermentation crock to check out the activity. The 4 inch SCOBYs that I had thrown in were now forming a large SCOBY layer across the entire surface. Apparently this is normal.

Brewing Kombucha – Adding Fruit for Flavor

After fermentation was complete, I pulled got my racking cane ready to transfer the fermented tea into a bunch of mason jars with different fruit concoctions in each – most of which were strawberry based. We did 2 mason jars full of each of the following flavors:

Once we had our fruit in our mason jars, we racked the kombucha into each, getting each as close to full as possible. Note: We topped off each jar a bit more than pictured.

Brewing Kombucha – Takeaways

To be honest, I was very surprised how quick and straightforward the brewing process was. Coming from homebrewing beer, for some reason, I thought it was going to be a bit more “involved”, but it was really simple and straightforward. Flavoring kombucha is going to be a lot of fun. There are so many flavors and ideas that I want to try, but while strawberries are in season…. chances are that my next batch will also be strawberry flavored.

Stay tuned for the next post where I’ll let you know if this actually ends up tasting okay!

]]>https://blog.kegoutlet.com/brewing-my-first-batch-of-kombucha-takeaways/feed/02303https://blog.kegoutlet.com/brewing-my-first-batch-of-kombucha-takeaways/Choosing to Brew Kombucha with the Intention of Kegginghttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KegOutlet/~3/V8ILNqvwQO0/
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]]>Brewing a batch of kombucha has been a long time coming for me. I’ve always enjoyed drinking kombucha, its tanginess and that slight effervescence is very refreshing and enjoyable – especially on a warm day. As I learned more about the health benefits of kombucha, I began to look more into brewing it at home.

Why did I want to brew kombucha?

I’ve enjoyed just about every kombucha I’ve tried

Healthy / health benefits

Free tap on my 7 faucet kegerator in my garage

I brew beer (and coffee… and cold brew), so why not brew kombucha

Three good reasons is enough for me to try just about anything, so with four solid reasons, I finally decided to get the necessary equipment and ingredients after about 2 years of wafering around and coming up with every reason why not to brew kombucha. Some of those reasons included:

I reached out to Kombucha Brooklyn owner, Eric, and asked for some suggestions. He was nice enough to respond and suggest a complete 1 gallon kombucha starter kit, so that’s what I went with, but I stepped it up to 2 gallons.

I may not have mentioned it earlier in this post, but my intention when brewing kombucha was to get it into a keg and put it on draft in my keezer. I’ve got a few 2.5 gallon kegs that float around between my house and my brothers, so my end goal in brewing kombucha is to start putting it on draft in my kegerator.

So there you have it. My reasoning for wanting to get into brewing kombucha. I have always enjoyed drinking kombucha, so I figured its about time to start brewing it for myself. Stay tuned for future posts which may (or may not) include:

Brewing my first batch of kombucha

Adding fresh, local fruit and herbs to flavor kombucha

Stepping up brewing equipment for larger batches of kombucha

How to put kombucha into a keg

How to put kombucha on draft at home

Let us know if there are any other topics that you might want us to cover

Health Benefits of Kombucha

Just a quick list of some of the health benefits that I’ve heard about. I can’t attest to any of these, so do your own research.

Great source of probiotics and promotes gut health

Good source of antioxidants

Contains antimicrobial properties

Stimulates the immune system

]]>https://blog.kegoutlet.com/choosing-to-brew-kombucha-with-the-intention-of-kegging/feed/02300https://blog.kegoutlet.com/choosing-to-brew-kombucha-with-the-intention-of-kegging/Nitro cold brew tricyclehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KegOutlet/~3/GUfKxkzg0QA/
https://blog.kegoutlet.com/nitro-cold-brew-tricycle/#commentsMon, 30 Oct 2017 22:45:43 +0000https://blog.kegoutlet.com/?p=2280This is our tricycle that we use for Nitro cold brew during festivals. The front and top has chalkboard paint so that we can label what we’re serving.

]]>Thought I would show yall my keezer build. Still going to build a matching brewing bench beside it but Im very happy with how the keezer turned out. The keezer is on wheels so that it can pull away from the wall for loading kegs or cleaning beer lines. The top part of the keezer is mounted to the wall and not attached to the keezer in anyway. This allows the keezer to be pulled away from the wall and opened just like it was still a freezer using the original hinges.